About Us

The Fairy Godmother Charitable trust is a registered NGO that focusses on girl children education and women’s development. The NGO is 6 years old, initially run from the trustees own funds and donations from close friends, relatives and well-wishers. The Trust obtained the benefit of 80G under the IT Act, initially for a period of 2 years and presently the Trust is qualified for 80G benefits without any cap on validity.

The dream of the trustees is of a society that has healthy, educated families thereby helping better the economic situation of India. The conviction that “Knowledge is Power” and “women are the architects of a family and consequently the society” is the driving inspiration for the Trust to focus on supporting girl children education as the immediate initiative. The key objective of The Fairy Godmother Charitable Trustis

therefore to achieve a holistic welfare for women of all segments and more importantly help nurture and create a better society by creating educated families which can be achieved by educating a girl.

The present projects of The Fairy Godmother Charitable Trust include supporting girl children with tuition fees, cost of uniforms and books, free breakfast program for girls in their teens, distribution of value education books to help channelize energy towards positive thinking so that taking extreme step for small setbacks is alleviated.
The future vision and plan includes post natal counselling for women as well their spouses, women awareness programs against the personal and social hazards of alcoholism, workshops on self defence mechanism for women safety and education on self-employment opportunities. The future vision also includes geriatric and palliative care.

BACKGROUND

The Dream

Two girls who came from ordinary families, relied upon their education alone, to better their own lot. Having achieved the same, the conviction of the self-made women that education is the key to success, grew stronger. They had a budding dream of spreading the message and handholding as many girls as possible through the same road to success as they travelled.

The women envisioned themselves to be the fairy godmothers for as many girl children as possible. The dream then graduated to the next level of an insatiable passion which led to the birth of The Fairy Godmother Charitable Trust, a registered NGO in 2007-08.

The Trustees

The Fairy Godmother Charitable Trust has 3 like-minded trustees, committed to complete transparency of operations, have been supporting the delivery of the Trust’s objectives consistently albeit on a low scale for 6 years.

Mrs.Roopa J Menon:

The Founder and Managing Trustee is a post graduate in History from the Madras University with a Bachelor of General Laws from Madurai Kamaraj University and PGDM from the All India Management Association New Delhi, Roopa has a store of corporate experience across reputed corporates such as ITC Financial Services Division, HDFC Bank Ltd., HCL Technologies Ltd., IDEACellular Ltd. The last held designation was Associate Vice President with Macmillan India Limited. A natural passion to help the less fortunate made her join the Rotary Movement. She was the first Lady president of The Rotary Club of Madras Southwest, since its inception. She left the Rotary Movement in 2003 owing to career compulsions on time. However, her thirst to eventually establish and institutionalize an organization that strives for women’s development, made her leave the comfort zone of a corporate career to pursue her dreams one of which is the NGO.

Ms.KannakiRamadoss:

A post graduate in Commerce, Kannaki is an entrepreneur, engaged in exports of shoe uppers to the European countries. Hailing from an ordinary family, Kannaki’s tenacity to better her own lot as well as to help the less fortunate, has made her entirely self-made success story. This insatiable passion to better the lot of women, has made Kannaki join hands with Roopa J Menon, her childhood friend and classmate in institutionalizing the dream of ‘Giving back to the Community’.

Mr.P.Janardhanan Menon:

An MBA from the Loyola Institute of Business Administration, Janardhanan Menon, after a long stint with MRF, went on to head Flame Advertising Private Ltd., Chennai. Presently, Janardhanan Menon is one of the directors at Agni College of Technology, Chennai. Janardhanan Menon,also the spouse of Roopa J Menon, has been associated with philanthropic initiatives of various groups, the main being the community initiatives run by the management of Loyola college Chennai, for over 30 years.

The objectives of the Trust

The superordinate goal of the Trust is to help women across a variety of segments to be self-sufficient in terms of life skills, vocation, awareness and many other aspects which will help them realize the importance of their role in creating a responsible society for future.

However, as a beginning, and the conviction that ‘’Knowledge is power’’, the Trust identified the immediate step towards the above, as support for girl children’s education since ‘’catch them young’’ is the best way to begin any cultural transition.

The long term objective includes project for geriatric and palliative care.